TVA begins refueling of Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant

March 17, 2015 at 12:55 a.m. | Updated March 16, 2015 at 11:42 p.m.

by Dave Flessner

Workers gather near the No. 2 reactor that is undergoing refueling during a tour Friday of the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Athens, Ala. AP Photo/Dave Martin
Workers gather near the No. 2 reactor that is undergoing refueling during a tour Friday of the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Athens, Ala. AP Photo/Dave Martin
photo Browns Ferry

The Tennessee Valley Authority has begun a scheduled refueling outage for the Unit 2 reactor at its Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Alabama after the unit operated continuously for the past seven months.

An additional 830 TVA and contract employees will supplement the site's regular staff during the outage, which began last Friday. More than 167,000 work-hours of activities are planned.

"The outage is a scheduled and carefully planned activity for safely replacing fuel and performing maintenance on key equipment and systems," said Keith Polson, Browns Ferry site vice president. "Browns Ferry units 1 and 3 will both continue to operate during the outage."

At full capacity, Browns Ferry's three generating units provide a combined 3,300 megawatts of carbon-free electricity. This is 10 percent of TVA's total generation capacity and enough electricity to power 2 million homes.

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